Bad Habits in the Face of Good Advice

A good poker book is always a gift. While I have read many that cover theory, math, and hand analysis, the ones I have found potentially most useful focus on enhancing the physical and mental approach to the game.

Recently I found myself nodding my head in hearty agreement with numerous excellent points made by Patricia Cardner and Jonathan Little in their book Peak Poker Performance. Cardner identifies various bad habits that interfere with our functioning and offers strategies to combat them, while Little connects these strategies in very tangible ways to an optimal approach for poker sessions. All of their advice seemed so clear, so attainable.

However “potentially” is the crux of my problem. Let’s look at the current tale of the tape:

I. Sage Advice from Cardner/Little: Prepare physically for poker sessions by sleeping well, eating right, and exercising. Maximal energy, focus, and brain functioning is not possible if you are not caring for your body.

My Reality: Sitting on the coach the night before a tournament eating a bowl of popcorn (really a thinly veiled butter delivery system) followed by an ice cream chaser while binge watching the first season of The Vikings until 2am probably doesn’t meet the Cardner/Little standards of optimal prep. Neither does making an orphan of the treadmill for the past month or vowing that once the Hershey’s kisses are kaput, the snack diet will be strictly mandarin oranges and celery.

My Reality: Found all of these fine points challenging the last two weekends when my tournaments were ended by poorly executed directives from another excellent Jonathan Little tome, Bluffs. Apparently, I should not have impulsively shoved all-in representing an ace in my hand when one hit the river when the other player had already paired the raggy board with …top kicker in his hand. So that would be 2 pair to my blown straight draw. “Moron” was the nicest thing my inner critic said over the next 90 minutes.

III. Sage Advice from Cardner/Little: Avoid procrastination in studying/training by making a game out of accomplishing aversive tasks, structuring a more productive working environment (e.g, put that cell phone out of sight), creating simple to-do lists, and my favorite: Temptation Bundling (which I thought was a reality TV series on Fox).

My Reality: Now they’re just messing with my brand. Procrastination is the lifeblood of future self-recrimination. I’m not sure I’d recognize myself without it. If I was dutifully addressing all the leaks in my game with disciplined daily hand analysis, well where’s the challenge there?

IV. Sage Advice from Cardner/Little: Don’t just set goals for your poker career: develop a system of growth and improvement that is marked by increasingly strong positive habits.

My Reality: See my above love affairs with procrastination and the couch. Tough to bang out a disciplined system of self-improvement when you misplaced your detailed study plan and you figure you’ll find it tomorrow. Right now a new Shark Tank just came on.

In truth, my good self does show up from time to time. When it does, growth toward a better poker player and person actually seems attainable. I would just like that self to be a more regular resident, rather than a timeshare holder in my psyche.

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One Comment

This was a good commentary that I enjoyed reading a lot. It reminded me of something I once read by Frank Wallace in his text The Advanced Concepts Of Poker about 100 years ago.

He stated that the biggest loser in the typical poker game may well be the biggest winner because to be a winner at poker the good player must strive to surround himself (or herself in this new era) with losers and weak players, the exact opposite of the people a winner in the game of life would enjoy being around.

And when you think about it that makes perfect sense. A prime example would be the late Stuart Ungar, the 3 time World Series winner who died of a Heroin overdose in a downtown Vegas hotel with $800 in his pocket. And think about the poker industry further. If you really get into the heart of it and play as a full time professional you find that the industry runs on borrowed money. People are in and out of the money all the time and are constantly borrowing to stay in action.

One last comment here. Contrary to what everyone seems to think and all the books that have been written Texas Hold-Em is not rocket science or even Algebra 1. It isn’t even as complicated as the now extinct games of 7 card stud and 5 card draw. It’s a simple game where people put in one bet hour after hour or even day after day to see the flop. Either you hit the flop or you don’t. If all the money goes into the center 99% of the time you either flopped a big hand or a big draw. If you play 40 to 60 hours a week at no limit for 50 weeks a year taking 2 weeks off for vacation, which very few poker addicts do, there will be perhaps less than 50 hands which will make you or break you during the year. And in the words of Mason Malmuth the cycles (luck if you prefer) run so severe you can be the best player in the game and lose for 2 years straight. I don’t know about you but the average player isn’t going to lose for 2 years straight. They will find a straight job and join GA and take the cure long before then.